Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Golden Compass
Plot:
Based on author Philip Pullman's bestselling and award-winning novel, 'The Golden Compass' tells the first story in Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. 'The Golden Compass' is set in an alternative world where people's souls manifest themselves as animals, talking bears fight wars, and Gyptians and witches co-exist. At the center of the story is Lyra, a 12-year-old girl, who starts out trying to rescue a friend who's been kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as the Gobblers and winds up on an epic quest to save not only her world, but ours as well.
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2 comments:
Okay, now that the news of Golden Compass's disappointing box-office is rolling in, I guess it's safe to say New Line will not be making anymore sequels, squashing any hopes of this series becoming another Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. And, of course, poor Nicole Kidman will be thrown to the wolves and called box-office poison, as she has already on Perezhilton.com.
I saw the movie last night, and while I don't think it was that bad (I actually enjoyed it, and liked it more than Chris did LOL), it is not a "classic" and I don't see the movie connecting with a mass audience the way LOTR or HP did.
The movie is visually stunning, but with these types of fantasy movies, you expect it to look good. The cast is excellent, particularly the young girl who is very appealing, and Nicole steals all the scenes she's in. She's an effective villainous, both seductive and scary (although I did focus intensely on her eyes to see if the botox rumours were true LOL).
But the movie has two major flaws -- one, it feels heavily edited, as if the studio tinkered with it to rush it into theatres; and two, it's a bit too confusing. You can tell this is an adaptation because there is endless exposition at the beginning and throughout the film. I didn't know what was going on for the first quarter of the film.
As for the plot, it's a little non-sensical, and yet for some reason, I liked the film. It's not great, but enjoyable. It has a likable heroine and a great villainous, who both should be in a better film. Perhaps the characters and story will be fleshed out in the next sequels, but with the disappointing box office, we may never get the chance to find that out.
It’s too bad that the film box office sales were disappointing. Trying to make another LOR or HP box office success will be very difficult. The adaptation of the Lord of Rings books to film was well done. The unique concept of filming the entire film all at once and breaking it up into three parts was very smart. Like you mention you never truly get drawn into the film. And when it ended it lack suspense. Well it attempted at leaving a suspenseful ending. But since you’re not drawn into the story it becomes a mute point. I completely agree with you on the flaws of the film. I also thought that Nicole Kidman played her part very well. I think that that acting in general by all the main characters was done well.
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